Gonaqua, noun

/ɡɔˈnakwa//ɡəˈnakwa/
Forms:
Chonacqua, GanaquaShow more Also Chonacqua, Ganaqua, Genequois, Ghonaqua, Ghonoqua, Gonaaqua, Gonagua, Gonakwa, Guanaqua, Gunaqua.
Plurals:
Gonaquas, or unchanged.
Origin:
KhoikhoiShow more Khoikhoi, gona etymology unknown (perhaps related to gonna, see gonna noun3) + -qua plural male suffix, ‘man’, ‘people’.
obs. except in historical contexts
1. A member of a Khoikhoi people of what is now the Eastern Cape, absorbed by the end of the 18th century into the Xhosa polity; a member of a people of mixed Khoikhoi and Xhosa descent; Gona noun2. Also attributive. See also Gqunukhwebe.
1776 F. Masson in Phil. Trans. of Royal Soc. LXVI. 296These Hottentots are called Gunaquas, but were mixed with another people whom the Dutch call Caffers, who border upon Terra de Natal.
1790 tr. of F. Le Vaillant’s Trav. II. 2These hordes of Gonaquas, who equally resemble the Caffres and the Hottentots, must be a mixed breed produced by these two nations.
1799 Lady A. Barnard S. Afr. Century Ago (1910) 213The Gonagua man took great pains to tell Mynheer Barnard what pretty girls there are in that country.
1810 G. Barrington Acct of Voy. 222The Ghonoquas..once considerable in their numbers..are now reduced to so very small a number as to border upon a total extermination of the tribe.
1827 G. Thompson Trav. 51This once numerous tribe, like many other Hottentot clans mentioned by early travellers, is now entirely extinct. The residue of the Gonaquas sought refuge among Caffers a few years ago, and they are now fully incorporated with that people.
1833 Graham’s Town Jrnl 20 June 2Gezwint Baartman, Goliat, Gonaqua Hottentots.
1860 W. Shaw Story of my Mission 318Ghonaquas, a border tribe of Hottentots who had mingled much with the Kaffirs during one or two generations, and many of whom consequently could speak the Kaffir language.
1871 J. Mackenzie Ten Yrs N. of Orange River 517In 1737 there was still a considerable tract of country between the Dutch settlers and the Kaffirs, which was inhabited by the Gonaqua Hottentots.
1930 I. Schapera KhoiSan Peoples 46The Gonaqua, at first apparently an insignificant tribe..by the middle of the eighteenth century had become the most powerful group of Hottentots in the east.
1979 Daily Dispatch 11 May 5Mr Ncapayi claims to be heir apparent to the tribe’s paramountcy as a direct descendant of Paramount Chief Hoho who was head, in the 7th century, of the Ciskei Gonaqua Hottentots, who were also known as the Khoikois.
1986 B. Maclennan Proper Degree of Terror 60At least one family of Ghonaqua Khoikhoi..who certainly had no base in Xhosaland, were unceremoniously bundled across the border.
2. rare. Pondo sense 1 a.
1812 A. Plumptre tr. of H. Lichtenstein’s Trav. in Sn Afr. (1928) I. 298Proceeding along the coast (sc. after crossing the Bashee river), the next tribe to the Koossas is one which is called by many different names; that by which it is most generally known is the Gonaaquas, but by the colonists they are usually called Mambuckis; the Koossas call them the Imbos, and in Van Reenen’s Journey they are called the people of Hambona.
A member of a Khoikhoi people of what is now the Eastern Cape, absorbed by the end of the 18th century into the Xhosa polity; a member of a people of mixed Khoikhoi and Xhosa descent; Gona noun2. Also attributive.
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Gona, nounn.2gonie, nounn.
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